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Sculpture/Transcript
Transcript Text reads: The Mysteries of Life with Tim and Moby Tim chips away at a block of gray stone using a mallet and a chisel. Moby watches. MOBY: Beep. TIM: It’s a sculpture. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Of me. Can’t you tell? Moby shrugs. TIM: Uh, it’s uh, it’s a work in progress, okay? Tim reads from a typed letter. TIM: Dear Tim and Moby, What’s the big deal about sculpture? Thanks, Boffo. Sculpture is a kind of three-dimensional artwork made by shaping different materials into shapes and figures. And right there is why it’s such a big deal! Sculptors take random blobs of material, then shape them into meaningful, and often beautiful, forms. Moby giggles. MOBY: Beep. Beep. Beep. TIM: Uh, moving on. Sculpture is one of the oldest art forms, going all the way back to prehistoric times. Even though the techniques have changed drastically since then, it’s easy to see that goals of sculpture have pretty much stayed the same: to portray the qualities of life in nonliving stuff. That’s why animal and human forms are, by far, the most popular subjects. For thousands of years, sculptors have focused on capturing life’s movement and softness in hard, motionless materials. Images show six stone sculptures, both modern and ancient. TIM: Even abstract sculptures often include the curves of living things. An image shows a modern abstract sculpture that looks like a golden bird. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Well, sculptors can use a lot of different materials. Stone, metal, wood, clay, wax, plaster, ice. Anything solid enough to be shaped. Images show the seven materials that Tim names. TIM: I’m working with marble, a kind of stone that’s a popular choice for making a statue. An image shows Tim’s block of stone. TIM: Statues are a common type of sculpture that represent a person, animal, or event. During the Renaissance, the Italian artist Michelangelo used marble to create his famous masterpiece. Moby presses a button inside his wrist, then Tim and Moby are whisked away and appear in front of Michelangelo’s sculpture of "David." TIM: The statue of David. See how lifelike it is? You’d think it’d feel like warm human skin, instead of cold, hard marble. Moby touches the statue, a siren goes off, lights flash on and off, and a cage drops around Moby and the statue. TIM: Uhhhhh, a successful sculpture can make you want to touch it, but that’s usually not such a good idea in a museum. Moby presses the button inside his wrist. He and Tim are back where they started. TIM: Anyway, picking the material is only the first step. Sculptors also have a lot of different sculpting techniques to choose from. There’s carving, where chunks of hard material, like stone or wood, are reduced to recognizable shapes and figures. An image shows a block of stone which slowly turns into the famous statue, "The Thinker." TIM: Using tools like a rasp, a hammer, and a chisel, they grind, pound, and chip away all the unwanted parts to slowly reveal the masterpiece within. An image shows the sculpting tools Tim names. TIM: Then there’s modeling, which uses materials that are soft enough to be shaped by hand, like clay or wax. An image shows a lump of clay that is shaped into the statue, "The Thinker." TIM: Sometimes, sculptors add pieces of this stuff on top of an armature, a wire frame that supports the finished sculpture, sort of like a skeleton. An animation shows clay placed over a wire shape and formed into a sculpture of Moby. TIM: A clay sculpture is usually fired in a kiln, a type of oven that hardens clay by baking it. The Moby sculpture is placed into a kiln. TIM: Ta da! An image shows the finished Moby sculpture. Tim puts his hand to his ear. TIM: What’s that? You like this sculpture so much that you wish you could make more just like it? Moby frowns at Tim. TIM: Well, good thing we have a third sculpting technique called casting. First, we create a negative image of the original sculpture, called a mold. An image shows the clay statue of Moby. A transparent mold appears over the statue that turns into a white block. TIM: Crack open the mold and we’re left with two pieces that form an empty space the exact same size and shape as our sculpture. All we have to do, more or less, is put the pieces back together and pour more liquid, plaster works for this part, too, into the empty space. Once that dries and hardens, we’ll have ourselves a perfect copy of the original. An animation shows the process used to duplicate sculptures by using molds as Tim describes. A second Moby statue emerges from the mold at the end. TIM: These are all pretty traditional methods of making sculpture, but artists use all sorts of techniques to make three-dimensional works of art. For instance, they can weld pieces of metal, sew fabrics, or even use manufacturing or construction tools to shape their work. Four images show a hand welding metal, a needle and thread sewing fabric, a manufacturing apparatus, and a construction bulldozer. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Right, not all sculptures are free-standing, or in the round. Relief sculptures project out from flat backgrounds like walls, or even mountains. Side by side images show a relief sculpture of a man on a horse projecting out from a wall, and the faces of the presidents carved into Mount Rushmore. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Well, just like any other art form, sculptures can serve different purposes. It can commemorate important leaders and historic events. It can be used to express religious themes. It can make a political or cultural statement. It can even just be pretty to look at. Four images show a bronze statue of Napoleon with a cannon, a stone statue of Buddha, a Soviet propaganda relief statue, and a modern, free-form sculpture. Moby shoots a laser from his hand at the lump of stone next to him. A cloud of smoke appears, and when it clears, there is a bust of Moby labeled “MOBY.” TIM: Oh, cool, you made a bust of yourself. Moby tips the bust over and it crashes. Tim winces. Moby looks upset. TIM: No, no, a bust. Moby shrugs. MOBY: Beep. TIM: A statue that shows a person from the chest up? Moby shoots another laser at the broken bust which reduces it to dust. TIM: Never mind. Category:BrainPOP Transcripts